We are pleased to announce an opportunity for a funded PhD at the University of Salford.

Exploring the impact of welfare conditionality on Roma migrants in the UK

Supervisor: Dr Lisa Scullion

Successive Governments have sought to extend the use of welfare conditionality, as a defining feature of many recent welfare reforms. At the same time, successive Governments have also increasingly curtailed migrants’ rights to welfare in the UK. Literature that explores welfare to work policy in relation to migrants and ethnicity suggests that discriminatory attitudes may be significant in influencing both higher levels of sanction and lower quality of support for migrant communities.Such concerns are of specific relevance to migrants who are identified as ‘vulnerable’. It is widely recognised that Roma represent one of the most socially excluded communities across Europe. It is also acknowledged that an increasing number of Roma have migrated to the UK in recent years in search of a better life. Arguably, recent changes in policy around migrants’ access to welfare are a consequence of this migration, and the negative political, media and public perceptions around Roma communities.

The aim of this PhD is to explore welfare conditionality – in relation to benefits and social housing – from the perspective of Roma communities, providing an understanding of their experiences and coping strategies when subject to conditional welfare. This PhD will be linked to a major five year ESRC funded project entitled Welfare Conditionality: sanctions support and behaviour change(http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/). Welfare conditionality brings together researchers working in six English and Scottish Universities and aims to establish an original and comprehensive evidence base on the efficacy and ethicality of welfare conditionality.

This PhD student will become an active member of both the wider ESRC project and the research team at the Sustainable Housing & Urban Studies Unit (SHUSU) at the University of Salford, where they will be based.